Chinese Spaghetti

Serves 8

Chinese spaghetti is like pizza in the sense that you can add a variety of toppings. But this is much healthier than pizza as it uses seven different types of vegetables. Chinese spaghetti does not have to be a strictly vegetarian dish; you can add fish or chicken or some other lean meat. But even the most loyal of carnivores will not be able to deny the normally meatless sensation that is Chinese spaghetti. This meal only takes about half an hour to make and its cheap ingredients are sure to stretch your dollar.

You will need:

• A salad spinner
• A measuring cup
• A knife
• A slotted spoon
• 2 large pots (about six inches deep, enough to hold a quart of liquid)
• A spaghetti server

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion
• 1 medium to large Chinese eggplant
• 1 head of bok choy (Chinese cabbage)
• 2 medium sized tomatoes, diced
• ½ a head of leeks
• 10 chopped garlic cloves
• ½ cup of olive oil
• 12 oz. of spaghetti
  
• ½ cup of sesame seeds
• 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese
• 1 pound of imitation crab meat
• 1 pound of mixed bell peppers (about 6 or 7 peppers)
• Some ground black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon of salt

Condiments (whichever you prefer)

• Hoisin sauce
• Oyster sauce
• Soy sauce
• Plum Sauce
• Chinese mustard
• Duck sauce
• Red cherry sauce
• Teriyaki sauce
  

Start by prepping your vegetables and boiling water for the spaghetti. Take a large pot and fill it with water and add a tablespoon of salt. Follow the directions on the spaghetti box. While the noodles are boiling, start prepping your vegetables by rinsing them under cold water. Take your leeks and bok choy and break them away from their stems then place the chopped leeks and bok choy in a salad spinner. Use the salad spinner so that the dirt and tiny pebbles in these vegetables can sink to the bottom and won’t appear in the food.

Grab your second pot and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Chop your onions, peppers and garlic into the pot and add the diced tomatoes. When you’re chopping up the vegetables they should be about the size of your thumb. I cut them that way because vegetables tend to shrink as they cook. Sauté the vegetable pieces until they soften and then add a teaspoon of pepper. Add the Chinese eggplant later only after the other ingredients are soft because eggplant cooks much quicker than vegetables do.

Like I said before, you can add any meat you like to Chinese spaghetti, but my personal favorite is imitation crab meat. I always thought imitation crab meat came from imitation crabs, but I recently discovered it was made from the finely pulverized flesh of the Alaska Pollock, a white fish whose flesh is shaped and cured to resemble snow crab legs. By now, the water for the pasta should have boiled and the noodles should be soft enough to eat. As soon as the spaghetti is ready, drain the water out and transfer the cooked noodles to the other pot and stir all the ingredients together as the eggplant cooks. Your Chinese spaghetti should be ready in about 10 minutes. Once everything is ready, sprinkle and stir in your sesame seeds and parmesan to add some crunch and cheesy flavor to your meal.

As for toppings, I like to keep the condiments Chinese or at least Asian to keep with the whole Chinese theme of the dish. Once you serve the food, guests should be free to choose whichever condiment they want to add to their Chinese spaghetti. I really don’t have a favorite, so I alternate between the sauces mentioned above.